At length did cross an Albatross...

I've been out in New Zealand for a couple of weeks now, attending the 5th International Albatross and Petrel Conference in Wellington and doing some collection work at the fantastic Te Papa museum.

We went out for a pelagic trip chumming for albatross in the Cook Strait and managed to pull in 7 different species just on the edge of the continental shelf. This Salvin's albatross was happy to hang off the back of the boat checking us all out and I managed to get this nice close up using only my 17-85 mm lens.